Reception Theory

RECEPTION STUDIES AND CLASSICALFILM THEORY

Reception theory is grounded in history, rather than philosophy, and as
a result it is primarily concerned with uncovering how actual spectators
interact with films. This is unlike many other major film theories,
which posit an idealized, ahistorical spectator who passively absorbs
meanings and messages embedded in the filmic text. Most of the classical
film theories developed in the 1960s and 1970s, including structuralist,
auteurist, formalist, Marxist, and psychoanalytic theories, argue that
the text is the site of meaning. These theories are concerned with how
viewers are affected by films, but the audiences they describe are
comprised of idealized, homogenous spectators who all react to films in
the same way, regardless of differences in race, gender, and other
identifying factors. Much of classical film theory was influenced by the
work of French theorists who, beginning in the late 1960s, argued the
importance of ideology in various systems of representation. According
to Marxist theorist Louis Althusser, the capitalist system operates
through the use of so-called repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) such as
the police, government, and military, and also through ideological state
apparatuses (ISAs), which include schools, the family, religion, and
media systems. RSAs are public institutions and function primarily
through repression and violence. ISAs, on the other hand, function
through ideology and work by enticing individuals to accept subject
positions which benefit the dominant classes and perpetuate capitalism.
According to this theory, the mass media, as an ISA, transmits the
dominant ideology to passive spectators who internalize this ideology
and become cooperative members of the capitalist system.

Althusser's theory of the media as an ideological state apparatus
was embraced by classical film theorists, who examine the ways that the
cinema influences spectators by analyzing the cinematic texts. These
theorists assume that audiences will passively receive a film's
ideological messages. Social identities and individual subject positions
are not considered, nor are the conditions of exhibition or the social
or historical moment. A major criticism of classical theories, then, is
that the spectator is ahistorical and idealized, and plays no role in
the creation of a film's meaning. Reception theory rejects this
classical construction of the spectator, and instead focuses on viewers
in the material world, and how they have actually read and understood
media texts.

Because of their interest in film as a medium for ideology, classical
film theories are overwhelmingly textactivated, operating from the
assumption that meaning is created in the text and that the text
determines the viewer's response. An alternate theoretical
viewpoint is reader activated, which examines the features of readers
and how those features affect the reading experience. While reader
activated theories account for varying interpretations among readers,
however, they still tend to make generalizations about individual
interactions with texts and not to contextualize the reading experience.
Janet Staiger proposes a third approach, a context-activated model which
looks at the historical circumstances surrounding reception to place the
reader/spectator in context. Context-activated theories examine
everything from the individual's subject position to the
text's mode of production and the circumstances of exhibition.
The sum of these events gives meaning to the viewing or reading
experience (
Interpreting Films
, pp. 45–48).

Drawing from Althusser's concept of ideological state
apparatuses, and using context-activated theories, British cultural
studies analyzes the ways that spectators interact with texts in
specific contexts to create meanings. Originating in Marxist philosophy,
British cultural studies sees the media as an influential communication
tool controlled by those in power; the groups who control the media
control the message, thereby maintaining their dominance. Where British
cultural studies differs from classical film theory is in its conception
of the spectator. Because the messages conveyed by the media are complex
and varied, so are the interpretations available to viewers. The
audience, then, is not uniform as in classical film theory, but rather
heterogeneous and capable of interpreting a text's messages in a
multitude of ways based on contextual factors. British cultural studies
suggests three frameworks for reading texts, based on the work of
theorist Stuart Hall: a dominant, or preferred reading accepts
completely the ideology of the text, while an oppositional reading
absolutely opposes the ideology involved; a third type, negotiated
reading, both accepts and opposes parts of a text's ideology in
order to suit the specific needs of the individual (pp. 136–137).
These frameworks have proven useful for reception studies as a means of
theorizing the wide variety of interpretations and meanings that viewers
take from texts. Both British cultural studies and reception theory
agree that the spectator's interaction with the text is complex,
and that, unlike the passive, idealized spectator found in classical
film theory, viewers can and do question and oppose the ideology
presented to them by media institutions.

The framework of dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings is not
without problems, however. Because viewers can hold multiple positions
towards a film text at once, most every reading becomes negotiated; in
fact, the tripartite framework has since been replaced by a continuum
ranging from dominant to oppositional. Furthermore, British cultural
studies assume that oppositional readings are automatically progressive,
and that dominant readings are regressive. However, if the ideology
embedded in the text is itself progressive to begin with, then a
dominant reading may be the preferred reading. Finally, Staiger offers
criticisms of two fundamental assumptions of British cultural studies:
first, that all media texts reproduce the dominant ideology, and second,
that readers fit neatly within socioeconomic categories (1992, pp.
73–74).

Part of the reluctance on the part of film theorists to turn to
reception studies is based in the historical uses of audience analysis.
Beginning in the early twentieth century, research on how films were
being interpreted by audiences was used to advocate censorship.
Reformers worried that spectators, especially children, were negatively
influenced by what they saw onscreen, and they fought to ensure that the
messages in films would be "appropriate," in their view,
for impressionable viewers. Later, the film studios turned to audience
research in the form of demographic information to learn how to market
their films. But although the use of reception analysis for the purposes
of censorship and marketing has contributed to film theorists'
distrust of reception theory, reception theory has recently gained
acceptance and is now acknowledged to be an important method of
analyzing how audiences experience and interpret films.